


Day 1: Scenting

by GoddessofRoyalty



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Gen, Scenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24471118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofRoyalty/pseuds/GoddessofRoyalty
Summary: Cloud smells sweeter than most omegas. This causes problems that have the easiest solution of an alpha's scent masking his own.
Relationships: Cloud Strife & Barret Wallace
Comments: 10
Kudos: 147
Collections: ff7omegaverseweek





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I literally finished this, proofed it, and posted it. Any remaining errors we blame on tiredness. 
> 
> Is this Barret/Cloud pre-slash? Is this just pack-bonding? I don’t know. You tell me.

“You haven’t seriously been letting him go out like that?” Barret demands when Cloud and Tifa walk into Seventh Haven after running some errands.

“Like what?” Tifa asks. But Cloud gets it – it probably was pushing it with him just wandering around in his First Class uniform. Especially as it started to get picked up that an ex-SOLDIER had helped out with the Mako-reactor explosion. Cloud didn’t really have a choice though – he didn’t have any other clothes.

“Can’t you smell him?” Barret asks.

Cloud didn’t think he had that bad B.O.

Maybe it was the Mako though? SOLDIERS were known to smell of it at times. Normally only after they were exposed to it though. And what happened at the reactor shouldn’t have been enough.

“No, I can’t smell him.”

“Well he smells so damn sweet I’m surprised we don’t have a line-up of alphas out the damned door,” Barret says. “I’d say I think he’s in heat if I didn’t know better.”

“I’m not,” Cloud says immediately. Because the last thing he needs is people talking about how he was just wandering the streets in heat. “And I can take care of myself.”

“I ain’t questioning that,” Barret says. “But you smelling like that ain’t exactly helping to keep attention off us.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” It’s not like Cloud could exactly turn off his natural scent – not even the best suppressants on the market could do that. And he’s not exactly going to avoid going out in public altogether.

Barret’s face curls at it. Like he wants to argue the point but doesn’t know how. Instead storming off towards behind the bar.

Probably doesn’t want to come off looking like one of those _omegas belong in the house_ alphas.

Whatever.

There was still stuff Cloud still needed to get done today.

“Here it is,” Barret says. Apparently having found whatever it was he went searching for behind the bar. Not that Cloud sees what can see why he should care.

He will admit to being confused when Barret returns with a jacket. Not seeing why it was so important to get right now.

The confusion turns to offence when the jacket is draped over his shoulders.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a jacket of mine,” Barret says, apparently completely missing the point.

“Why is it on me?”

“To help mask your scent. And hopefully prevent ever single alpha in the sector sniffing ‘round here looking for you and instead finding out about what we do.”

“Might be good for business if they did hang around here more,” Tifa says. And at least she looks slightly guilty when Cloud glares at her for it – unlike Barret who is apparently completely unrepentant.

“It’s not necessary.” Cloud doubts what Barret is saying is true. Alphas never really seem that interested in him. If anything they seemed to actively dislike him.

“Actually,” Tifa says, just as Cloud goes to shrug off the jacket and give it back to Barret, “It might not be such a bad idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I did notice some of the alphas were watching you pretty closely while we were out,” Tifa says. “I just assumed they were checking if you were a threat. But if you do smell so good-“

“I don’t,” Cloud says.

“You do,” Barret says.

Tifa just shrugs.

“Why don’t we just try it for a bit and see if it makes a difference?” she suggests.

“Fine.”

Cloud knows a losing argument when he’s in one and he doesn’t have the energy to keep fighting it right now.

It won’t make a different anyway – he’ll be proven right anyway. Other than maybe some people thinking he’s being courted by Barret nothing will happen because it’s not like anybody really gives a shit about him or his scent.

Cloud just wonders how long it’ll take for either of them to admit it.

* * *

Barret’s got to admit it’s good to be back at Seventh Haven.

Firstly, and most importantly, to have Marlene back in his arms and happily chatting away to fill him in on everything that’s been happening in her life since he left. She seems to be doubling in size every time he leaves and Barret doesn’t know if he can bring himself to do another one of the long trips when it means missing so much of her life. Even though he knows Tifa and Cloud are treating her like their own.

It’s nice to see Tifa as well. She can fil him in on what’s happening with the politics and decisions being made about how to fix the planet after everything that happened. About how the bastard Shinra has actually shown his face again and actually doing something useful. About how he keeps trying to play nice with them, probably to regain some social clout by working with the planet’s heroes, and how Cloud keeps shutting him down.

“Speaking of our spiky omega, where is he?” Likely on a delivery, Barret knows, but he might also be somewhere in town just avoiding the obvious place people would know to look for him.

“I don’t know, he was supposed to be back yesterday,” Tifa says, before shrugging, “but you know how Cloud can be.”

And because Cloud is as much a devil when he wants to be, he storms into Seventh Haven right then.

Not that the storming seems to be much related to their conversation. Cloud grumbling about ‘idiot alphas’ under his breath as he heads towards the stairs. And Barret’s pretty sure he can hear what is likely at least some of those ‘idiot alphas’ outside the bar. The only reason they’re not coming is because the place doesn’t open for another two hours and Tifa would actual throw them out on their asses if they tried.

“Nice to see you too Cloud,” Barret says, because he ain’t so rude to just ignore someone he hasn’t seen for a while because he’s in a shitty mood.

Cloud stops dead in his tracks. Something Barret is sure many have learnt to fear, but honestly he’s known the Spike for too damn long now.

So he doesn’t even flinch when Cloud turns on his feet and instead storms towards him.

And he’s only slightly surprised when Cloud basically collapses against his side.

“Remember when I first suggested that you cover yourself in my scent to keep the other alphas at bay and you dug your heels in like?” Barret asks. Even if he can admit it was less a ‘suggestion’ and more a jacket pushed onto Cloud’s shoulders

“Shut up.”

Cloud does slightly nuzzle like he’s maybe, actually, scenting. As much as he’ll admit it.

The fact he doesn’t even flinch when Barret silently wraps his arm around him is all the confirmation Barret needs at it.

Across the table Marlene pouts. Clearly put out that someone else is getting cuddles and scenting.

“Come here baby girl, daddy can scent you too,” Barret says because he still hasn’t learnt how to really say no to her.

“I could leave,” Cloud says. Likely in protest at Barret’s choice of words.

“Yeah, but you’re not gonna’”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked me to write just group pack scenting so Marlene could get used to Cloud’s scent. So here it is.

They saved the world.

Don’t get Cloud wrong. He’s glad they did. They defeated Sephiroth and Jenova and stopped meteor.

But he doesn’t know what to do now.

Most of their group peel off to head back home. There is much to fix and while they promise to come visit, and soon, they now have responsibilities that need to be done.

Cloud doesn’t have anything to return to. He never was a SOLDIER and even if he had been, Shinra is in ruins.

He ends up following Tifa and Barret back to the camps on the edge of Midgar.

Follows them back to where Elmyra lives now.

She seems to know without them saying what happened to Aerith and she seems at peace with it. Or at peace as any of them can be.

The mournful moment is gone as soon as Marlene thuds into the room. Throwing herself at Barret who catches her and holds her tight.

“Oh I missed you!” Barret says, nuzzling into Marlene’s hair to take in her scent.

“I missed you too daddy,” Marlene says with a joyful giggle and her own deep breathes to take in Barret’s scent. “And you too Tifa.”

“It’s good to see you Marlene,” Tifa says running her hand through the girl’s hair, a more gentle way of transferring her scent onto the girl.

And Cloud just feels like an outsider to it all.

“Why don’t you take them to your room Marlene,” Elmyra suggests, “they’re probably tired from their journey.”

“Oh right!” Marlene says jumping back to her feet again before tugging Barret and Tifa back towards her room. The two of them following her with little reluctance.

Cloud shouldn’t have come back with them. They are a pack, granted a non-conventional one. And Cloud is just an outsider who brought more trouble into their lives.

He should leave.

He doesn’t know where else to go but he doesn’t want to impose.

“What are you waiting for Spike – a personal invitation?” Barret calls from Marlene’s bedroom. “Get in here – you need rest too.”

Cloud doesn’t want to. He’s tired, sure, but he doesn’t want to impose on their little pack.

However he’s equally sure if he doesn’t either Barret or Tifa will come drag him where they want. While calling him an idiot.

When he walks into the room Tifa and Barret are already crammed into Marlene’s small bed. Their shoes kicked off at the door.

It’s an almost ridiculous sight and Cloud doesn’t know what they expect him to do. Maybe sleep in the corner?

“Well don’t just stand there gawking – get in here,” Barret says.

“Uh,” Cloud doesn’t know if he should – Marlene hardly knew him when he was in Midgar and seemed to have decided on being afraid of him as a result.

And, anyway, there isn’t exactly any room for him on the bed.

“Here,” Tifa says, inching over slightly and patting the space next to her. And Cloud would be squashed between the two of them there. “Come on Cloud – you deserve rest as well.”

“Alright.” She has a point and Cloud has a feeling he wouldn’t win any argument against them both anyway.

It takes a bit of manoeuvring for Cloud to get onto the bed and comfortable. Marlene shifting onto Barret completely as Cloud gest on. But as soon as he’s settled she climbs onto him, resting against his chest with her head lying just beneath his neck – a position ideal for taking in his scent.

“You smell of daddy,” Marlene says and Cloud doesn’t know how to respond.

Of course he smells like Barret – you don’t spend as long as they did living so close together and not end up with scents mingling like a packs. But Marlene’s Barret’s actual kid and _pack,_ not like Cloud who only ended up with mingled scents because of coincidence and circumstance.

“’Course he smells of me, that’s what pack does,” Barret says. “And I gotta’ keep those overly interested alphas away from him, it’s my job as Head Alpha.”

“I can look after myself,” Cloud says because he’s never really liked being seen as some weak omega. His words immediately are forgotten when Marlene speaks up her head popped on Cloud’s chest so she can look into his face.

“You’re pack now?”

She means it as an honest question in the way children do. But Cloud feels pinned down by it more than by her weight on his.

He never had a pack before.

But after everything they had been through together the only people he would want to be in a pack with are the group.

And that, by extension of Barret, includes Marlene.

“Yes.” He hopes she’s okay with that.

“Okay,” Marlene says, laying her head back down on his chest. “All packs need an omega anyway.”

It isn’t actually true. Packs don’t need any designation. But Cloud supposes it’s just a young girl’s way of rationalising his inclusion.

He leans his own head down to better take in her scent. She smells of pup mostly, it being so long since Barret last had a chance to scent her himself.

Cloud realises the new pack-scent she is going to pick up will include him.

That fact doesn’t sits anywhere as awkwardly as he thought it would.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is GoddessofRoyalty, twitter is GoddessofRoyal if you want to chat to me about Final Fantasy, omegaverse, a combination of that, or send me prompts.


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